35th Street Girl
by tobia
Summary: You watch her and wonder who she is and what she is looking for. She is special, and you want to know her, to see the secrets she carries, to understand her, to unravel the mystery... Chapter 2 up, my departure from the JoA fandom.
1. Chapter 1

_35th Street Girl_

**Author's note: All Joan of Arcadia characters, etc., belong to Barbara Hall. I just miss them. Please review!**

She's there again. For the past two weeks, she's been there every morning like clockwork, ticking away at time and at life. She sits there with her arms folded and legs crossed at the ankles and stares into the distance like she's looking for someone or something. She never panhandles or hands out pamphlets or shouts warning of the apocalypse. She doesn't juggle bowling pins; she's not a mime. She doesn't play the trumpet or sing. She doesn't have a cup in which passerby's throw coins. She is not something you can guess at and for that reason she is something that more than anything you want to know.

In your head, you've named her 35th Street Girl, even though she's more a women than a girl. You've made up stories about her, fake explanations because you can't get real ones. She's been a mental patient, an undercover agent and a reporter all in your head. She's been rich, poor, and middle class, a wanderer and a rock. She's been lucky and cursed, a hiding princess and a deranged fugitive. She is a blank canvas on which your thoughts run wild and if you were a painter and not a banker, you would surely have her portrait by now.

The only time you ever saw anyone talking to her was when a cop came by. Some person had called in a complaint on her, figuring anyone that spent their life like she does is breaking a law of some sort. You were furious at that instant, furious they would take her and lock all her secrets away. But the cop said she was breaking no laws, for she was not begging nor performing without a license nor being a public nuisance. She was just sitting a park bench, doing nothing wrong. In fact, you thought, she was doing nothing at all.

You've never seen anyone that so loves scarves as she. She wears one everyday, long flowing mazes of fabric that sweep around her and wrap her away. You've seen thin pink ones and thick white ones, stripes and solids, bright and dull. It doesn't look so different now when the cold winter weather has brought out the scarves of the city in full force. On her, they look different, as though they are what anchors her to this world, as though without them she might become a ghost and float away. You bet she has summer scarves as well.

…..

Today, you wear your Walkman on your way to work. You've just bought a poetry book on tape, and you time your steps to the beat of the words as you walk. The style is odd, both harsh and smooth, something young in its words yet old in its wisdom.

As you pass her, you find yourself saying the poem aloud. You're so engrossed in the beat that you might have missed it had it not been so out of the ordinary. Her ears perk up and her eyes shine. She looks so happy and alive that you almost stop right in middle of the road to stare. Maybe this is a sign of the apocalypse after all.

The next day, you see that she holds in her lap a brand new copy of _Sewer Walking_. As you walk by, you notice that she is whispering to herself. You join in, your silent voices in perfect unison.

"_You and me, we used to talk…_

…..

On Monday, you have a big meeting, so you get up early and take the bus to work. There were days when you relished having a good excuse to take the bus and break your self-imposed regime of exercise. Today, though, you hate it. You hate the sound of the motor, the constant chime of the stop bells. Everyone on the early morning route seems to be half asleep unlike the streets where everything is movement and movement is everything. You sigh and resign to yourself to the fact you've become an exercise nut. You follow a few government suggestions, and now you can't take a bus.

Your meeting ends at five, so you leave work early, high on the feeling of success. The others are going out for self-congratulatory drinks, but you don't feel like joining them, so you simply get your briefcase and your coat and head out the door. It is not until you pass the empty park bench on 35th Street that you realize that you don't really hate the bus at all. The whole rest of the way home you can't shake the feeling that you're being followed by a ghost.

……

You are not good at Christmas shopping. You love buying stuff for yourself, but you absolute hate buying stuff for others. It's not that you're greedy, but rather that you're afraid. When you shop for yourself, there's not much a risk. Even if you buy something you end up hating, you can always justify it with "Well, I thought…" or "In the store…" With other people, it's not that easy. You always run the risk of getting your niece a doll she already has or your sister a dress two sizes to small. You don't want to be The Guy That Ruins Christmas. But you're nieces and nephews are still young enough that they believe in Santa, so you spend hours in the store picking out just the right toy, consulting lists and guidebooks and pestering your fellow shoppers until you're 99 sure you haven't messed up.

You walk home, more than relived to have the shopping over with for the year. You're route doesn't take you past 35th Street.

…..

It snowed during the night, and the ground is blanketed with a thick sheet of freezing white. For a minute, you worry that this will drive her away, make her retreat to wherever she cam from. But no, she is there again, sitting on her bench just like always. She is all bundled up in a thick brown jacket and long stiff blue jeans. Through the opening of the jacket, you can just barely catch a glimpse of her newest scarf, red and green stripes. It is not until you see that scarf that you realize it will be Christmas for her, too.

All the two and half miles to work, you think about what you could get for her. You think of scarves and of poetry, of her leather boots and penchant for torques. But then you remember that fear you felt when you thought she was gone forever, and you realize that this may be the first and last gift you ever give her. If you want to get it right, you're going to have to ask.

….

You walk toward her slowly as though the sound of your steps might scare her away. She sits there, gazing into the distance, watching, waiting, looking, and you think you think if you can help her find what she's looking for she will stay and talk you. And so you ask in a shaking voice what she is looking for.

She pauses for a minute and then answers.

"God."

_Oh_, you think, _she's crazy. That's all._

But even as you tell yourself this, a part of you whispers across the wind.

_Liar, liar…_

You walk away.

----

She never came back.

The sensible part of you knows she just went to another bench, another street where she can live in her sad, crazy world. And yet a part of you always wonders if maybe, just maybe, she went with God. Maybe it was a Merry Christmas after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Disclaimer: The Frost poem quoted is "The Runaway," courtesy of http/ . I don't own Joan of Arcadia or any of its characters. I do, however, own the poem in the story; that's my creation. The views in this story may or may not be my own._**

….

You raise the glass to your lips and take a swig of champagne. It is classic New Year's champagne, cheap and plentiful, there not so much by desire as by unspoken law. All around you people are caught up in the spirit of free alcohol, fancy clothes, and the promise of a paid half-holiday come morning. You mirror their smiles on your face and echo their cords of laughter, but you feel a bit like champagne: there because you have to be.

You step out onto the street and hurry down to the cab you called earlier. If you thought you hated buses, then you must loathe cabs. You detest every single bit of the experience, the strange aromas, the dust-covered seats, and watching the meter climb ever higher while you sit in traffic, doing nothing but feeling your wallet get thinner. But tonight, you don't really have a choice, so you suck it up and patronize Yellow Cab anyway. You walked to get here, but it is too dangerous to be walking around downtown at midnight on New Year's Eve, and you'd like to start the year alive.

About six blocks from your apartment, the driver makes an abrupt change in direction. When you question him, he explains that there was an accident further up the road and that emergency personal blocked off the road. Stealing a glance at the already outrageous charge, you nod complacently and put the accident out of your mind.

…

The next morning, you wake up at eight with a slight headache and a groan. You push yourself out of bed anyway and pull on your work clothes. Everyone else gets the option to come in at noon, but you, being the hard worker that you are, plan to come in at nine. What better way to start to New Year off then with some brownie points with the boss?

In the kitchen, you pour yourself a cup of coffee (no way you're giving _that _up) and grab a banana from the bowl on the counter. As you eat, you casually scan the local section of paper. Your eyes pass over announcements of taxes, park renovations, protests, and foreclosures with a lazy boredom, halfway between sleep and awareness. At least, that's what you do for the first 13 pages. On page 14, you spill your coffee, choke on your banana, and feel your heart stop. Because staring up at you from page 14 is none other than the 35th Street Girl

…..

Your heart is beating now, thumping against your rib cage with such intensity you wonder if you might die right there in the middle of the street.

_22 year-old female critically injured…_

Your feet are pounding now, pounding against the Manhattan pavement, echoing her name with every step.

_Joan, Joan…_

Your mind is reeling now, moving at record pace and yet getting nowhere.

_I was there. I was there, and I didn't even stop. I was there._

Your lungs are screaming now, burning, gasping for air.

_Be okay. Please be okay. Please._

But above it all, you can hear a voice, her voice, _Joan's_ voice, whispering against the wind.

_God._

And then you reach the hospital.

……

It is only when you get inside that you realize how horrible you must look. A huge coffee stain looms on the front of your shirt, you're dripping with sweat, and you can barely breathe. You lean against the wall for a minute, briefly wondering if someone will mistake you for a patient, and try to catch your breath.

"Are you okay?" a voice says, and you nearly jump out of your skin.

You turn to face a black doctor in blue scrubs. His voice is gentle and soothing, coxing the fear out of you, and for a minute, you want to tell him everything; you believe he can solve all your problems and make everything okay again. But then you remember why you're here, and you're left with the feeling that no one can fix this.

You tell him you're here to see Joan Girardi. The name feels strange on your tongue, foreign, and you can't quite attach it to her yet. To you, she is still the 35th Street Girl.

He leads you down a dingy gray hallway, walking with a marked efficiency that makes your already exhausted lungs protest. His gait is strong and sure, his stride commanding. As you jog behind him, you swallow again and again the question that rests on the tip of your tongue. You imagine you already know the answer anyway but to hear it from him would make it real. And this can't be real.

The doctor stops in front of a heavy wooden door.

"You can see her now," he says, gesturing toward the door.

…..

She lies there on the bed, unaware of your presence. Wires surround her, and machines fill the room with an incessant array of beeps, blissfully study in their rhythm. Her hair fans out on the pillow, long and brown. Her body is practically hidden by covers and wires, but nevertheless you can see that she is not wearing a scarf. That irks you somehow, even though it is but a small thing, and this is so huge.

Her hand lies on top of the covers. You reach out to touch it but draw back just before you make contact. You fear that she may die while you are touching her and that you will be forced to carry the burden of her death. So you withdraw your hand and move away, filled with shame and fear and sadness and all these other things ,and wonder who this girl is that she can be so weak and helpless and nonetheless manage to turn your world upside-down.

The chair in the room is made of thick, cheap plastic, and you can feel your back stiffen almost instinctively as you sit down. Ignoring the discomfort, you set your briefcase on your lap and open it up, hoping it find something, anything, to distract you from what is before your eyes. Instead of forums and reports, however, you happen across something even better. You had listened to _Sewer Walking_ a few days ago on your way to work and must have forgotten to take your Walkman out of your briefcase upon getting home that night. You marvel at your stroke of relative luck and click play.

It is only when the tape clicks off two hours later that you manage to comprehend anything outside of Grace Polk's words. Catching a glance at your watch, you remember work and the bills pilling up on the counter and all the things you've worked for. So you pack up and leave and promise yourself that tomorrow you won't run out of words.

…..

That night, you go to the bookstore. It's one of those mega bookstores, the kind with three stories and its own coffee shop. You could care less about the cappuccino; it is the selection alone that draws you this time. The shelves are crammed to the breaking point with everything from the famous to the obscure (within the limits of publishing, anyway ), fact to fiction, funny to heartbreaking. You pass shelves of fantasy, of kids stuff, of political rants without a second glance-amid the hundreds of shelves in store only four matter to you right now; all you can think about is poetry.

By the time you reach the checkout line, your hands are filled with books. Not just the classics (Dickinson, Frost, and cummings among them), but also new books, fresh of the press from authors whose names never showed up in junior year lit. The clerk gives you a bit of a weird look when he sees you but doesn't say anything. You're glad because you don't know how to explain you thought that if you had enough to read, Joan might just stick around long enough to hear it.

…..

"_When other creatures have gone to stall and bin/ Ought to be told to come and take him in."_

And so you finish Frost. You've found you like Frost, even though you showed no particular affection for him when you were younger. You like the beat of his words in your mouth, the strains of the profound that echo in your mind after the sound leaves your tongue. You like to think that Joan likes him, too, that somehow she heard every word. You hope she likes to rest just as well, that she cherishes Dickinson and loves Wordsworth. You want to make her happy, to see her smile the way she did when she heard _Sewer Walking_. You would give anything to make here happy, anything that is except God.

_If you gave her God, then you wouldn't have her for yourself._

You shake your head and wonder where you got all this. Why are you so unarmored with someone's whose very probably crazy and is at least disturbed? Why did you take a day off your dream job to read poetry to a girl who might not even be able to hear you? And why, why are you buying into her craziness? Why all of the sudden do you think of God when you never really cared before?

And then you look at Joan, lying motionless on her bed, and you pick up another book and begin to read:

"_If I could hate you_

_I believe that I would_

_I would turn away and forget your name_

_And walk away with spite_

_Dangling of my lips_

_And sooner rather than later _

_You would not matter to me_

_Nor would I hesitate to forget you_

_If only I could_

_I would not think of you as I lay in bed_

_And ask why you had to leave_

_My heart would not jump at the sound of your name_

_Your words would not grace my lips_

_You would not matter at all_

_If you had never existed, never came to be_

_How light my soul would be_

_My dreams would be pure_

_I would not wake up sad_

_From seeing you again_

_Just in memory_

_How hard it is to love_

_When what I love is gone_

_And joy and happiness_

_Become but misery_

_And yet how blessed I am_

_That I knew you then_

_When your words were new_

_And forever was real_

_I only wish they had told me_

_The other side of the coin_

_About sadness and anger_

_And how hard it is to say good-bye_

_So I would know what I was getting into_

_When I started loving you_"

…..

You stay until visiting hours are over at seven. You are loath to leave, and you linger at the door, stacks of poetry books in your hands. You want to break the rules and stay all night like a kid at a sleep over. You want to be there when she wakes up, so you can greet her. You want to tell her everything, to help her, to make everything okay again. If she needs money, you will lend it to her without fail. If she is hungry, you will bring her the fanciest of foods. If she is sick in body or in soul, you will find her the best doctors in world. If she is lonely, you will talk to her. If she is bored, you will entertain her. If she likes art, you will take her to the Met. If she likes music, you will take her to symphony. But most of all, you will ask her all the questions you always meant to ask.

But you are not a poet, a doctor, or a priest. You cannot cure her; you can not ease her soul. All you can do is sit and wait, speaking to her with the words of others and hoping she understands. And so you push open the door and walk out without another word.

In the hallway, a boy, a teenager with brown hair, stands outside Joan's door. He smiles at you with a soft, charming smile, and grabs the door as it closes beyond you. You tell him he can't go in, that visiting hours are over.

"They know me here," he explains. "I visit a lot of patients. In fact, they even gave me my own room here for that purpose."

You tell him he looks rather young for that, and he laughs.

"I'm older than you think."

You ask him if he knows Joan.

He nods. "I'm an old friend of hers, but she hasn't seen me in a while."

"She'll be glad you came," you say.

He smiles again, that same enigmatic smile, but says nothing.

You walk away, thinking the conversation is over, but as you walk down the hall, you hear his voice once more.

"Don't worry; she won't be alone."

….

Joan Girardi died that night. About nine pm, she developed a large blood clot. They rushed her down to emergency surgery but were too late to save her. According to the article, the police consider her death a "tragic accident," as the driver was not drunk, and no charges will be pressed. The funeral is to be held in three days.

You read the obituary and accompanying news snippet as you prepare breakfast that morning. The words feel like a rock in your stomach, and you are thankful you had yet to eat anything that day. For a moment, you sit there, your head in your hands. You feel at once furious and heartbroken. You consider getting back in bed and sleeping it away. You consider ripping up all your poetry books (What do they matter now anyway?) and burning the pages. You consider sitting right there at your table and crying. And then you stand up, pick up your briefcase, and head to work because, really, what else can you do?

….

The day they bury her is overcast and cold. The mourners, almost all professors and students from Joan's college, rub their hands together and shiver as the eulogies are read. You can tell part of them just wants to thing to be over so that they can return to their heated automobiles and classrooms, but you don't mind the cold much. After all, if they buried Joan Girardi in ninety degree sunshine, there would be no scarves.

This is your lunch break for the day. You have important meetings scheduled in both the morning and afternoon, and no acceptable reason to take the day off. Everyone would be understanding if she were a relative or even a close friend, but in truth, you can claim her as neither as she only spoke one word to you in sum. Thus, you are allotted but one hour to say good-bye.

When the eulogies are finished, everyone walks by the coffin in single file and says their piece. Some leave flowers; a few reach into touch her cold hand. You do neither, and just try to breathe. You look but for a second at her body in its black silk dress and then turn and walk away.

As you walk back toward the cemetery gates, you hear a voice behind you call your name. You whip around to see the boy from the hospital. Beside him stands none other than Joan Girardi. She looks not as you knew her but a few years younger, maybe 16 or 17, yet you are certain it is her. She smiles at you and nods slowly.

"Look."

You turn your head, and all around you you see people that weren't there before. A red-headed girl, an old women in glasses, a man with a dozen dogs, a black man sitting on the ground and holding a chess board in his lap are just a few among the thousands that you see. The sky is filled with ripples, long and wide and infinite. You stare and wonder what this is. And then you blink, and they all are gone.

You stand there in graveyard as it begins to rain, not quite sure if you're ready to believe the world Joan has shown you, the world of God, faith, and ripples, the world behind your eyes.

….

**_Author's note: And so I depart from the world of Joan of Arcadia, a world which ended all too soon. I'd like to thank the cast and crew for their amazing efforts, which spurred me to write again years of hiatus and brought me immeasurable joy through a TV show I was so very sure I would hate. I'd also like to thank the folks at TWoP for all their insight regarding the show. And of course I'd like to thank all of those who read and reviewed my stories, which special props to wizened cynic and magentabear for their support and advice. I hope I did Joan justice._**


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